Were Made For This
by DarkPrincess128
Summary: "Still, some nights were worse than others. These were the nights Hermione and Ron stayed up late, sometimes to the wee hours of the morning, talking and sulking but still trying to keep up their spirits." Takes place during the Horcrux Hunt. Romione.


**Disclaimer: None of the characters or anything else you recognize is mine. Everything belongs to JK Rowling.**

**A/N: This is very loosely inspired by the song "Letters From the Sky" by Civil Twilight; the specific lines that inspired me are the ones included in italics. I hope you like this.**

_You and I were made for this_

_I was made to taste your kiss_

_We were made to never fall away_

The tent was the epitome of isolation. Each of the occupants felt that isolation in their own way and tried their very hardest not to let the other two know what exactly it was they were feeling. This was especially so when it was one's turn to wear the locket. It was frustrating enough, the Horcrux hunt, and they didn't need to make it worse by letting each other know just what was on their minds.

Still, some nights were worse than others. These were the nights Hermione and Ron stayed up late, sometimes to the wee hours of the morning, talking and sulking but still trying to keep up their spirits.

Tonight was one of those nights.

"I don't think Harry realized exactly what he was going into," Ron observed. They were sitting just outside the tent; inside, Harry was sleeping. Despite the protective charms that would hide them from anything that may come close, they were whispering just quietly enough for only each other to hear. It was late fall and there was no time like nighttime to see exactly _how_ late in the fall it was: the temperature was incredibly cold. Ron, in a fit of gentlemanliness, had given Hermione one of his warmer jackets. The locket lay unworn but safeguarded between them.

Hermione shook her head in disagreement. "No, I think he knew exactly what he was going into. I think _we_ didn't know what we were agreeing to."

Ron didn't seem to have heard her. "Months we've been at this. One bloody Horcrux is what we've got to show for it."

This time, Hermione didn't say anything. Ron continued, "If I die from this, then on the other side, I'm giving Dumbledore a piece of my mind."

"You didn't _have_ to go. He didn't say you had to go. Neither did Harry, neither did I."

"We already discussed this. He knew we were going to go. Why else would he have put us in his will? And what else would I have done? Abandoned my two best friends to go back to Hogwarts, where Snape is surely making a living hell for the rest of our friends? What kind of a life is that?"

It was testimony to how trying this whole experience was for the trio. Hope was constantly waning, ebbing and flowing as lugubriously as the tides. Ron, who could always be counted on to make a joke that could brighten even the darkest of situations, was having a hard time trying not to be constantly grumpy. Hermione, who could often find the bright sides of the most unfortunate events, was running short on her "half-full" attitude.

She changed the subject. "I hope Luna and Ginny and Neville are doing okay. I do think it's fairly batty of them to go back at all, though. With Snape running the place."

Ron grunted. "I wonder who teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts now."

"Maybe they reinstated Dumbledore's Army. If it was another incompetent teacher, I mean."

"How could they reinstate Dumbledore's Army without Harry to teach? Or for you to keep organized? It'd be a bloody mess. Maybe even literally."

Hermione performed a rare action – she laughed. "I'm sure they could find someone to teach. Both Luna and Ginny got very good. Even Neville was improving a whole lot."

"I wish we could've worked on Patronuses more."

"Why? You learned perfectly fine how to produce one."

"I know. But it was fun."

Hermione smiled. "Just looking at a Patronus makes one happy, doesn't it." Her voice was dreamy, as if she were thinking of something faraway and completely irrelevant. On a complete impulse, she drew her wand from beneath the jacket Ron had given her and her own robes and cast "_Expecto Patronum._" Her silver otter burst from her wand and scurried circles around the two of them before gallivanting into the trees and fading quickly.

"Nice," Ron murmured. He was smiling now – the end Hermione had wished to achieve. "What'd you think of?"

She blushed. "Oh, does it matter?"

Ron grimaced. "If you can think of something happy in this hellhole? Yes, it does."

Still blushing, she replied, "I thought of sixth year when you beat Cormac in Quidditch tryouts. And your face – it was so ecstatic. Like you had just won the lottery."

"The what?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's like the contest your dad won back in third year."

"Oh. But – of all things, that? Really?"

She shoved him playfully, giggling. The two of them sat smiling. They were holding hands – in order to keep each other warm, of course – and it was now pitch black. The only light came from the moon, which was only a sliver in the sky, and the stars. The mood between them had become significantly lighter since they had first exited the tent. But the silence hung over them like a black cloud, and every passing silent second brought the mood down a bit more. Hermione was especially desperate to keep the mood light, because it was inevitable that the morning would bring darkness once more. But she couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound incredibly forced. She remained silent.

"Months," repeated Ron finally. "Months we've been at this." They had regressed into their former topic, apparently.

Hermione didn't have the energy to try to change the topic. "I had been hoping," she said, "that Harry had forgotten to tell us something, you know? That there was a little more to go on than he told us. After all, I don't think he honestly expected us to go with him in the end. So I figured he didn't tell us everything."

Ron just nodded. "I feel like we're just bumbling around a whole lot."

"You can't blame him. He's doing the best he can." She sighed. "We all are."

"I just thought we would have been a lot closer than we actually are."

"We're _trying_, Ron," she said, almost pleading.

There was another long silence, where the two of them were clearly in completely separate universes.

"I don't know if I'm strong enough for what's coming," Ron whispered. Hermione, taken aback but not entirely surprised at this bout of insecurity, wrapped her arms around him and embraced him tightly.

"We both are, though. I know it." She sounded determined, but she was talking soothingly, as if to a distraught child. "We've done so much in the past few years. Finding the rest of the Horcruxes is no different."

"Yes, it is," Ron retorted.

Hermione considered. "Yes, it is," she admitted, "but we have experience with difficult and vague objectives, don't we?" Every year they had been in Hogwarts, there was some crisis in which they were always involved. Retrieving the stone. Finding the heir of Slytherin. Freeing Sirius. Helping Harry through the Triwizard Tournament. The battle in the Department of Mysteries. And always the lingering threat of Voldemort's oncoming attack. "We were made to be strong."

She kissed him then, and in the dark it was slightly awkward initially, but she tried to pour all of the rest of what she wanted to say into it. Dark days were ahead.

**A/N: I'm honestly not a big fan of Ron/Hermione. But like I said earlier, I was inspired by those lines of that song, and I figured I needed to write this. I found Hermione to be rather difficult to write, so I'm sorry if she's a little OOC. I'd really appreciate if you took the time to review so I knew what worked! Thank you!**


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